THE Famine Art Exhibition has already been seen in Belfast, but in a truncated version enforced by pressures on space (a kind of preview in Claremorris, where the initiative originated, was rather a makeshift affair in a disused cinema). So the Guinness Hop Store, even with its obvious shortcomings as a gallery, is the first stop along the route which has the space to mount it adequately.
Some previous impressions are confirmed there is a core of outstanding work to give it "body", that it is noticeably stronger in painting than in sculpture, and that there is a wide spectrum of styles and personalities represented. It is, in fact, extremely mixed and heterogeneous, rather than rigidly "thematic" or unified.
There are an essential number of large, complex but fully realised works - by Charles Tyrrell, Sharon O'Malley, Conor Fallon and Hughie O'Donoghue which act as pillars or focal points and help to hold it together.
The sculpture remains a little thin on the ground, though it has been strengthened by an impressive - and weighty - hanging piece in wood by Imogen Stuart; John Behan's two imaginative, skeletal bronze "ships" also stand out on the broad floor space.
Certain oddities in the hanging have meant that a large painting by Hughie O'Donoghue is relegated to a rather dusky corner. The prominent grouping of Brian Bourke's three pictures gives them immediate impact, though certain others, such as Sean McSweeney, Tony O'Malley and Louis le Brocquy, rather suffer by the Hop Store's capricious lighting and difficult layout.
The fact remains that this is a serious, considered cross section of contemporary Irish painting and sculpture, that it centres on a major (and topical) theme, and that it is a vote of confidence in something which had begun to look an endangered species - the large group exhibition. We can only wish it luck in the US and hope that exhibition spaces there will treat it decently.